Audley Shaw says he has urged donor agencies to reconsider the size of their aid programmes to the Caribbean, with a particular focus on infrastructure support and enhancement, following devastating hurricanes that pummelled a number of islands this summer.

“The vulnerability of the Caribbean is now indisputable and we need to seek affordable infrastructure financing solutions,” Shaw told delegates at yesterday’s opening of a two-day Caribbean Infrastructure Forum at Hilton Rose Hall hotel in Montego Bay.

Shaw, Jamaica’s finance minister, said that recent hurricanes Irma and Maria, had “reminded the world of the extreme vulnerability of the Caribbean to exogenous shocks”.

“These unprecedented natural disasters require extraordinary and equally unprecedented responses from the combined resources of the multilateral development partners, and I have urged these institutions to use the devastation of the 2017 hurricanes as an opportunity to reconsider their policy stance in the advancing of funding to economies rebounding from the effects of natural disasters,” Shaw said.

“Current multilateral financing and support exclude some Caribbean countries from access to development financing by using limited criteria based on per capita income and failing to take into account extreme vulnerabilities,” Shaw told the forum being hosted by IJ Global and New Energy Events, and sponsored by CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank and KPMG.

The Government of Jamaica, he added, was acutely aware that infrastructure development is critical for providing people with access to such basic needs as electricity, water, and improved living conditions thereby reducing poverty and supporting economic growth.

He pointed to programmes being implemented by the Government and partners, including in agriculture with the installation of harvesting systems under the climate change adaptation programme and upgrading of irrigation infrastructure the provision of budgetary support and parametric insurance through the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF).

Pointing to tourism, Shaw said that the Government was focused on providing quality infrastructure to support hotels already in operation and those projected for the next five years.

In energy, he said Jamaica is pursuing an alternative energy policy to reduce costs, develop additional generating capacity, and invest in renewable alternative resources.

Meanwhile, Nigel Holness, managing director of CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, said that cooperation between the private, public and financial services sectors is critical to raising the quality of infrastructure in the region.

Noting that “many people in the Caribbean still do not have access to basic infrastructural services like water, sanitation, transportation and modern energy ”, Holness said that infrastructure in many islands is old, inadequate and insufficient to meet today’s population needs. As a result, he said, some Caribbean islands often miss out on opportunities.

The CCRIF, he continued, will explore “the development needs and challenges of our Caribbean infrastructure… and the partnerships it will take between government, multilaterals, private sector, and international investors and developers to overcome these challenges and stimulate our infrastructure”.

“We are here to focus on the need to improve infrastructure systems in meeting the social, humanitarian and economic needs of our islands,” Holness declared.